


The wisest of women

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Honor thy father and mother [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e23 He Welo 'Oihana (Family Business), Manipulation, Parental Issues, Steve POV, danny pov, doris is a shitty parent and no one will ever convince me otherwise, episode coda, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 15:43:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16621769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: It's Danny's opinion -- both as a cop and a father -- that Doris had already done enough damage to last Steve a lifetime by the time she "died." Her "resurrection" has only cemented that opinion.





	The wisest of women

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Proverbs 14:1 -- The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. 
> 
> In case you can't tell, I'm referencing Doris.
> 
> Unbeta'd. Because I live fast and die young.

“Wait, wait. You did what exactly?” Danny shouts as Steve turns onto King St.

Danny’s always a little, or a lot, hyperbolic about the risks that Steve takes, so Steve patiently starts to repeat himself. “My mom, Wade, and Mick-”

“No. Shut up, okay? I heard what you said you did. What I want to know is why?”

“You told me that if my mother was in trouble I should help her, Danny. So I helped her,” Steve explains.

Danny rubs his hand over his face. “Okay, yes. I said that. What I meant was if your mother is in trouble help her-” he pauses and waves his hand around “- I don’t know, get rid of the evidence or something.”

“That’s what I did, Danny,” Steve points out.

“No. What you did, is break into a secured building, get recognized by Tyler fucking Cain — someone who I might add is up for a Senate appointment — and then, at gunpoint, steal back your mother’s classified dossier.”

“What’s the difference?” 

“What’s- what’s the difference? The difference is that normal people build their mother a deck or repaint their kitchen or clean the gutters. Normal people do _not_ — and this is the salient point, Steven — normal people do not risk losing their entire career and life in federal prison over classified documents that their formerly dead mother had hidden under the floorboards of their house. I am all about supporting you in having a relationship with your mother, Steve. After everything I get that. But she is using you, she is allowing you to put yourself in harm’s way-”

“No, Danny. She tried to hide this from me, she tried to stop me from going. I told her I wasn’t going to let her do this alone. She didn’t ask me for anything,” Steve argues back.

“But she didn’t stop you either!” Danny shouts. “As a mother, as a shitty mother who didn’t bother to raise you, she should have at very least not let you risk your entire life over her past. Hers, Steven; not yours. This is what I was talking about — you don’t feel like you’re worth love unless you earn it, like your value lies in your problem solving.”

“She’s my mother, Danny! What was I supposed to do? Let her end up in federal prison?” Steve shouts. 

He doesn’t know how to handle Danny’s assessment of him, like there’s a pattern that he can’t seem to see or break. He wants to write it off as Danny’s propensity for exaggeration, but no amount of justification can make Steve forget Danny’s nearly unerring insight when it comes to his family. If he’s honest with himself, Steve knows that Danny might be onto something. He thinks he ought to be glad that Danny cares, but Steve is just glad to have Doris back after all of it. Angrily, he wishes Danny would just drop it, because how many people get a second chance once a parent has died, even if that parent is Doris McGarrett. 

And sure, Doris is more complicated than most moms, Steve will grant that, but she loves him and he loves her. Or at least that’s the way it looks, a small voice whispers. 

Danny sighs and it’s a sound Steve hears a lot, but Danny doesn’t look frustrated or irritated. He looks sad like he did that night when he took off down the beach, when he explained that normal people didn’t parent with belts. “Steve, do you think that Doris loves you?”

“What- what, Danny?” Steve slams his palm against the steering wheel to punctuate his sentence because could Danny please stop pulling apart what little he’s got. “Yes, of course my mom loves me. Why are you-”

“How does she show it?”

Steve pauses because Danny’s asking quietly. There’s no yelling, no ranting, no impatient monologue or friendly insults. Steve knows Danny’s not going to let his go, not until what little he has with Doris has been so thoroughly picked over that every nerve in him is aching and raw. He wants to hate Danny for it but he can’t quite muster up the anger. 

“Does she say it?” Danny asks after Steve lets the silence stretch uncomfortably.

“Yes,” Steve answers, glad to be able to prove Danny wrong, even though somehow he knows that he’s just dug himself deeper into Danny’s argument.

“How often? How often does your mother tell you that she loves you, Steven?”

Steve swallows and looks out the window, using traffic as an excuse not to make eye contact with Danny. “She’s told me a couple times since she came back.”

“So a couple of times in the last six months. Alright, fair. I’ll give her that. You’re both emotionally repressed adults and that’s probably a lot for a McGarrett, even one who hasn’t seen their child in twenty years. But how often did she say it to you when you were a child?”

Steve’s stomach knots. “About as often as now,” he admits. The picture his dad gave him comes to mind — _I couldn’t even believe it had ever been real_. Somehow he still can’t. 

Danny nods and looks down at his hands. “How does she _show_ you that she loves you?”

The careful questions and gentle handling, something Danny reserves for scared and/or bereaved victims and family members, tells Steve that Danny sees him like that — traumatized, wounded, weak. He hates it. “I don’t know, Danny. How does your mother show you that she loves you now that you’re an adult? How often does she tell you?” Steve shoots back, his words barbed.

“That’s a fair question,” Danny replies evenly. “Well, I mean, to start, she calls or texts me a few times a week. We have conversations, she asks me about my life, she tells me about herself, also she tells me that she loves me every time we talk. As far as how she shows me? Well, she sent me a couple of jars of homemade marinara recently. I must have complained about the sorry state of pizza in this hellhole one too many times and she sent me that. Um, she mailed me some excellent salt water taffy at Christmas last year because you can’t anything decent on this island.”

“Let me stop you there. You’re conflating material things with love, but that’s not what love is.”

“Ah, but it’s a good way to show someone that you care. It isn’t the marinara, Steve. It’s that my mother knew it mattered to me, took the time to buy the ingredients, prepare it, and then mail it to me. Sure it tasted good, but I could have made it myself if I were desperate. It’s that she cared enough to do that. That’s the love part, Steve.”

“So you’re saying that my mother, who I haven’t seen for over twenty years, should know enough about me to do little things like make me marinara?” Steve asks incredulously.

Danny sighs. “That is my point, Steven. She left. I will not debate that she did or did not need to leave, but even once the coast was clear she didn’t come back. She only came back because you found her. Since then, she has belittled your investigative skills and naval career, gotten your girlfriend to withhold vital information, undercut the trauma of her apparent murder, and gone behind your back time and again only to need your help to save herself. I am not saying that your mother does not love you. I am saying that the emotional response which we call love cannot be the sole basis of a relationship. Love has to go beyond the emotional, Steven. If that love does not manifest itself in actions, or at the very least words, it doesn’t matter.”

Steve turns onto the Pali Highway but keeps his mouth shut. Danny’s making it sound like he’s a child abuse victim that’s desperate for anything resembling love and affection, like a shelter dog that can’t tell hurt from comfort. But regardless of how Steve sees or feels about himself, they had that conversation before Doris ever came back, and Danny made it clear what constituted abuse. Steve knows his life wasn’t perfect as a kid, but he has trouble seeing his relationship with Doris now as abuse, though he has no doubt Danny will enlighten him whether he wants it or not.

They’re speeding through the Punch Bowl when Steve finally speaks again. “We’ve been going out on an outrigger together a couple times a month. Used to do it when Mary and I were kids. Mary was too little though, so it was just me and Mom.”

Out of his periphery Steve can see Danny nod hesitantly. “That’s good. I’m really glad that you two are reconnecting over something happy from your childhood.”

The inflection in Danny’s reply grates on Steve, because whatever else Danny is thinking he doesn’t say. “But what, Daniel?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Danny protests.

“You’re thinking it though,” Steve snaps.

“I am thinking that I just want to see you happy. I don’t want you hurt, not just by your mother, but by everyone else from her past that is suddenly cropping up in your life. I know that having her back is really important to you, I just want you to make sure that you set healthy boundaries with her. That’s all.”

“Boundaries? Danny she’s my mother, not a serial killer.”

“Are you sure?” Danny inquires dryly.

It’s clearly just a joke that lands flat, but the anger that Steve already feels twists painfully in his chest and he says, “No more than I am.” 

Because that for all he and Danny share, Danny will never understand killing the way he does. Danny kills and it’s an unfortunate part of his career, something to get mandatory counselling for. Steve killed for years and it was celebrated — a successful mission, a good day at work, one less sonofabitch left in the world to hurt people. Instead of counselling, his COs bought them all a round and handed out the occasional commendation. He wonders if Danny would look at him the same way if he knew all the ways he and his mother are alike. 

“Fuck, Steve. I did not mean it like that. You know it. I just- look, you and your mom, you’ve got a lot of baggage. I’m not saying throw out the entire suitcase. I’m saying weed through what she’s giving you judiciously. If you don’t need her running commentary on how you run Five-0, tell her that. If you want her out of your relationship with Cath, tell her that. Yeah, she’ll be upset, but that’s on her. You cannot let the threat of her having a completely unreasonable emotional response stop you from taking care of yourself. That’s all.”

Steve pulls a hard left onto the Hawaii Pacific University campus and Danny clutches at the oh-shit-bar. But even so obviously provoked, Danny doesn’t say anything. It’s probably just as well, Steve thinks as they get out of the Camaro. Steve’s spoiling for a fight and he knows it, but it’s petty as hell to try and take it out on Danny just because he seems to have a surgeon’s precision for picking open old wounds. 

“Dr. Dalton should be in the admin building. We can start there,” Steve says, changing the subject. He knows Danny isn’t done. Hell, Steve’s probably not going to be able to let it go after Danny so thoroughly poked holes in everything he thought he understood. 

“At least he’s eighty. I’m not in the mood for a foot chase,” Danny says with a cocky smile that says he would love bitching about it for the rest of the month if this guy would please rabbit. Steve can’t help but laugh at the mental image, even if he is still more than a little ticked.

*****

Danny’s in his office, pecking away ineffectually at his keyboard, when Steve comes in. Or rather he storms in. Most of the time Steve knocks, says “Do you have a minute?”, and then politely slips in the door. Instead, Steve opens the door, barges in, and drops a stack of pictures on Danny’s desk.

“Hello to you, too. What’s this?” Danny asks patiently.

“Proof,” Steve says with a level of conviction that borders on the absurd.

“Uh huh. Proof of what exactly?” Danny asks as he picks up the stack of photos, utterly unconvinced by Steve’s stalwart declaration.

Steve doesn’t say anything while Danny flips through the stack. Mostly it’s pictures of what looks like a very young Steve, some going so far back it’s just snapshots of a youthful Doris holding an unidentifiable infant which Danny goes ahead and assumes is Steve. Other photos have Mary and John, too. Generally, the photos appear normal and happy, but Danny knows no one keeps the photos where your eyes are closed. They also don’t tend to document abuse or neglect very carefully either. Steve has already alluded to that which begs the question: why would Steve put any stock in photos? The only answer that comes to mind is desperation.

“You were cute once. What happened?” Danny asks when he’s thumbed through the entire stack.

Steve looks unamused and Danny changes tack. “Alright. So you’ve brought me proof of something. What in particular are you trying to prove?”

“When we met, you asked if I was held as a child. I told you I had proof. Here it is,” Steve explains.

“Ah.” It could be an idiosyncrasy of Steve’s that he remembers every goddamn conversation he has ever had, but Danny wonders if he remembered this one more because it hit a nerve than because he has an obnoxiously eidetic memory. “So the point you’re making is….?”

“My mother loves me.”

“I never said she didn’t, Steve. I know she does, in her own way. I didn’t need a stack of carefully selected polaroids to believe it. What I said was that you need boundaries in your relationship with her, that she has dangerous and unhealthy tendencies which hurt you and could conceivably harm you. That is what I was saying.”

The moue of discomfort Steve was wearing when he stalked in has morphed into Aneurysm Face. He’s looming over Danny’s desk, where Danny is still seated, and looking like he wants to give Danny pushups but frustrated that with the knowledge that Danny would never do them. Fortunately, due to Danny’s stature, he is well equipped to deal with looming and angry Navy SEALs, so he waits Steve out because there’s no way he walked into Danny’s office like this without a catalyst.

“Doris came by last night,” Steve finally says.

Danny doesn’t comment on Steve’s use of her name, not ‘mom.’ “How’d that go?”

“We had a couple beers out on the lanai. Talked about what happened after she left.”

Danny nods. “Sounds good, but…”

A sliver of hurt muddies Steve’s look of constipation and the hard lines around his mouth soften, turning down slightly. He goes still for a moment, clearly thinking, and then pulls out a chair and sits opposite Danny. “I tried telling her about the Army Navy Academy, what a hard time I had getting settled. About Joe.”

Steve pauses and looks up at Danny. Danny closes his laptop and nods. The conversation they’d had about John and Joe had been hard for both of them, and Danny knows that it’s significant that Steve told Doris. “What’d she say?”

“That Joe was just doing what needed to be done; that there’s no reason to get all dramatic about it.”

Danny clenches his teeth. He’d really like to punch Doris is her stupid fucking face right about now, but that doesn’t help Steve. “That’s really shitty, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly.

“What’d you tell her?”

“I told her I had an early morning and it was about time for her to go. She said I was acting like a baby, asked when me when BUD/s got so soft.”

“Fuck her, Steve. She’s completely full of shit. You’re one of the most decorated SEALs in the last decade. She’s being petty because she doesn’t want to admit that she was a shitty mother and that her actions hurt you.”

Steve nods but doesn’t say anything. 

“Steve, not to poke an open wound, but why did you bring me these pictures? Are you trying to convince yourself? Because even no matter what story these pictures tell, no matter how much she cared then, it doesn’t make up for what she’s doing now.” 

Steve looks like he’s about to argue and Danny doesn’t have enough fucks left in his soul to listen to him defend Doris so he steers the conversation back to something they’ve at least touched on before. “Look, you said it yourself when we were talking about the picture your dad gave you, you didn’t think was ever like that. Do you still feel like that? Even about these pictures?”

The intensity of Steve’s glare would have given Danny pause if he didn’t know Steve like he does so he goes on. “If Wo Fat hadn’t come back and your mother hadn’t left, would this version of your family be real? Even if your mother was still an ex-CIA assassin? Even if your dad still whipped you for not measuring up?”

The murderous look Steve was sporting only a moment ago drops, replaced with what seems like exhaustion, something Danny almost never sees on Steve. Steve sighs and leans forward, elbows on knees. “I don’t know. Fuck, I’m not even sure what that truth looks like sometimes. It’s so confusing trying to tell what’s a lie with her and what’s not. I never know what parts matter.”

“The exact things she did and does may be something you never figure out, at least not in terms of her intentions. But as for what matters, that’s easy — it matters that she hurt you then and that she’s hurting you now. And not just that, but it’s important that you can recognize that and that she can admit it. If she can’t or she won’t- she’s just gonna keep hurting you. I don’t want to see that happen; you don’t want that to happen. But you can’t keep excusing what she’s doing, not when this-” Danny says, tapping on the stack of photos, “-is your only proof otherwise, not when you don’t even buy what you’re selling.”

In an instant, Steve seems to shut down; the complicated and telling muddle of emotions on his face all but disappearing. Then, fast enough that it startles Danny, not that he flinches or anything, Steve reaches across the desk and snatches up the stack of photos. “Forget it, Danny.”

Steve is out the door before Danny has any idea what to say. Danny sighs and leans back in his chair, chewing on his lip. Trying to break through to Steve is like trying to break into Fort Knox with a plastic spork; it’s important and Danny’s trying, but sometimes Danny isn’t convinced that he’s making any headway. But this thing with Doris...it’s fucked, and Danny knows Steve won’t be careful with himself. Danny can’t just sit by and watch, can’t let her hurt Steve anymore than she already has. So it falls to Danny to look out for Steve, even — or maybe especially— when his mother can’t be fucked to do it.

*****

It took them three days, but they’ve finally wrapped the investigation. While the post-case grilling and beer-gathering was nice, it was good to see Chin and Kono gone. It isn’t that they make him uncomfortable; Steve’s just tired and Danny doesn’t take any energy.

Steve is almost relaxed, he can almost put the inconsolable wailing of the child’s mother out of his mind when the door to the lanai opens. His gun is on the concrete under the chaise lounge and he’s got his hand on the grip when Doris says, “A little late to be going for your gun, Steve. Didn’t you hear me come in?”

Steve sighs and releases his grip on the still holstered weapon. “No, Doris. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Hi, Danno,” she chirps, her voice sharp. “I see you’re still loitering around with my son. Don’t you have a date with that professor of antiquities?”

“You know I don’t,” Danny replies coolly, taking another sip of his now warm beer.

“Pity,” Doris says. “Have you heard from Catherine recently, Steve?”

“As a matter of fact I have. Why? Do you have something else you’d like to have her keep from me?” Steve shoots back. He deposits his half empty beer on the ground beside his chaise lounge and stands up.

“Why are you so defensive, Steve?” Doris counters.

“I’m not being defensive, Doris. I’m being realistic. That’s how you work. Why don’t you tell me why you came in my house without calling first only to insult me and my guest?”

“That’s not why I came over!” she exclaims.

“Could have fooled me,” Steve says flatly.

“I wasn’t- it was friendly ribbing!” 

Danny snorts and Steve turns to see him gazing out towards the ocean. “Didn’t feel like it,” Danny says.

Steve just holds his hand out towards Danny and looks at Doris as if to say, “See?”

“Oh come on. There are teenage girls who are less dramatic than Danny,” Doris snipes, all pretenses of friendliness gone.

Danny laughs quietly, but doesn’t say anything.

“Oh, would you like to contribute something meaningful to the conversation, Daniel?” Doris asks.

Danny stands up to face Doris and Steve can see his hackles rise. “Well, I mean, you wouldn’t know about teenage girls and their drama since you didn’t raise one.”

Steve can’t tell whether to be appalled or laugh, but by the time he at least decides that Danny isn’t wrong, Doris is shouting.

“How dare you? Where do you come off talking to me about my family in my own house? At least Steve and Mary had two parents to raise them. Your daughter sees you, what? Once a week? How is she ever going to have the stability she needs to have healthy relationships when she grows up? Don’t you owe it to your daughter to stay with Rachel?”

“Oh, you mean how you ‘raised’ Mary until she was ten and then you faked your own death and moved thousands of miles away, while I moved thousands of miles to stay with my daughter? Was that how you meant it?” Danny asks with obviously false interest. 

Steve is pretty sure that if his mother had ever learned how to kill with a stare Danny would already be dead. He wants to defend Danny because Doris is the one who has no right, but all that comes out of Steve’s mouth is, “This isn’t your house.”

Everything instantly goes silent. Doris gapes. Danny whistles and turns away, draining the rest of his Longboard as he goes. 

“This hasn’t been your house in twenty years,” Steve continues. “My name is on the deed, has been since Dad died. You don’t have the right to come in here and insult the people I care about. If you can’t respect that then maybe you need to leave.”

The quiet of Steve’s voice is shattered as Doris rails at him. “The people you care about? Am I not one of them now?”

“You are, but Danny is, too. He has been since you were nothing more than a memory. You don’t have to like him, but you will respect him.”

For a moment Doris stares Steve down, her gaze icy in a way that Steve can’t remember from childhood. And then she’s laughing, her smile and easy body language conveying nothing but genuine mirth, though Steve knows she’s anything but happy. 

“I think this evening got off on the wrong foot. I brought beer and late night malasadas. Why don’t we sit down and talk about this case you just wrapped up?” Doris says. Her voice is pitched up, none of the threat from moments ago.

“That’s not an apology,” Steve points out.

Doris visibly bristles. “I’m terribly sorry if I offended you, Danny.”

“And?” Danny asks, the empty bottle dangling from his fingertips.

Doris’ eyebrows climb halfway up her forehead. “And what?” she demands.

“I’d also like an apology for the insinuation that I am bad father and that my daughter is damaged goods,” Danny explains steadily.

Steve can’t help but smile at how devoted Danny is to Grace. He squashes the incipient sprig of jealousy that tries to sprout in his chest.

“I’m sorry I implied that your daughter was damaged in your divorce and that you are a poor parent,” Doris spits out between gritted teeth. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Oh ‘my turn’?” Danny laughs, looking at Steve and waving his bottle at Doris, before turning back to her. “No, Doris. It is not ‘my turn’. You were apologizing for slandering me and my daughter. What would I be apologizing for? Telling the truth? I’m not going to do that. I don’t owe you that.”

“I see where you get all your overly-dramatic ideas about child abuse from,” Doris says pointedly.

Steve shakes his head. “I had all my problems before Danny. He’s just the only person who’s ever let me talk about any of it.”

“So now I’m ‘mommie dearest’?”

“Doris-”

“You’re not even going to call me ‘mom’ anymore? I’m sure that’s his doing, too,” she shouts, pointing at Danny.

“It’s your own doing!” Steve shouts back, suddenly angry. “It’s yours because you treat me like I’m still too young to lock the door to my own bedroom, much less my own house, without you barging in, demanding to know what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with. You act like you understand everything, every situation, every person, every goddamn part of my life better than I can because I’m just a kid. But I’m not a kid. Hell, I haven’t even been _your_ kid in twenty years. You want all the rights to parenthood with none of the work, none of the mutual respect. I’m tired of being the one to put in all the work in this relationship.”

“Well maybe if you weren’t having your head filled with nonsense by your soap opera partner you would be able to assess the situation a little better.”

Steve pauses, unsure that he heard her right. “Did you- did you just ask me to choose between you and Danny?”

Doris crosses her arms over her chest and scowls. “Glad you finally picked up on something, _son_.”

For the first time in quite a while, Steve just stands there, agape. Then, there’s a warm hand on his arm.

“Hey,” Danny says softly. “I meant it when I said I wanted you to be able to work things out with her so I’m gonna go. It’s not even a decision you should have to make, okay? I’ll see you in the morning.”

Danny manages to take exactly one step towards the house before Steve’s brain catches up. Reaching out, Steve grabs Danny by the arm. “Don’t.”

“Steve…” Doris starts.

Steve turns to face her, her eyes red and watery. “Don’t. Don’t try the hurt feelings routine with me, Doris, because a) I don’t believe you and b) I don’t care. I’m not choosing anyone over anyone else. That’s what you want, not what I want, and I don’t have to do what you say; I’m not five anymore.”

“Before Danny you never would have spoken to me like this,” Doris asserts.

“How you would know? You haven’t seen me since I was sixteen, when you let Dad handle all the discipline with a belt. You never let me talk about anything important. What, did you think I would turn out like you? Just stuff it all down until it destroyed every good relationship I had? I may be dysfunctional but I learned something about relationships from you — namely what not to do.”

“Fine,” Doris snaps. Her eyes are still watery, but the quivering lip is gone. Steve barely has the chance to wonder if he’s severely misjudged the situation, when she says, “Enjoy the beer,” and stalks away through the open lanai door, the bag of malasadas slumping dejectedly on the concrete.

Steve listens as the front door opens and then clicks shut. Only then does he sit back down. “Fuck,” he says, rubbing his palms over his face.

The lounge dips as Danny sits beside him, his hand warm on his exposed shoulder. “Yeah. You gonna be alright?”

Steve nods before he’s really processed the question. “Yeah, yeah.”

They sit there in silence for a minute until Steve can’t take it anymore. “You mind watching the house? I’m gonna go for a swim.”

Danny nods. “Sure. Don’t be out too long. Night swimming is dangerous, Steve.”

Steve swallows and nods, stripping his shirt off as he stands. “Fifteen minutes. I just need to clear my head.”

“Yeah, alright,” Danny concedes.

Steve doesn’t even bother with board shorts, just wades out in his gym shorts and dives into the surf. It’s chilly but the water closes over him and it’s like the cloying remains of familial failure wash away in the tide. Steve swims, conscious of the riptides even in the darkness, and counts his strokes until the lights of shore are just twinkles in the night. Finally, when his breath comes a little harsher, Steve pauses, floats up on his back, and watches the stars until his breathing recovers. 

When Danny’s worry grows enough that Steve can practically hear him ranting on the lanai, he turns back to shore. He knows it’s not over, but at least, for now, he feels like he has a handle on whatever this is that he and Doris have.

*****

Danny, since it seems to be his job to deal with kids, manages to coax the fifteen year old son of the victim to sit on the sofa. It’d be easier if they weren’t still in the house where his dad died, but then taking him to HQ probably wouldn’t get him to open up any better.

“Nathan, we need to ask you a few questions,” Steve says as he sits down next to Danny.

The kid sniffles and nods stoically. “Yeah, okay.”

They make it three questions in before Nathan loses his composure and they have to take a break. It’s farther than Danny thought they would get. 

“Hey, Danny. Why don’t you go talk to Chin and see what they’ve got. I’ve got him,” Steve says softly.

Danny pauses a moment and looks at Steve, wondering how the hell he plans to effectively relate to another human being, and then figures he can just stand off to the side and intervene if it goes to hell. He hikes his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen. “I gotta call Fong anyway.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny watches as Steve moves to sit next to the kid who’s curled in on himself and heaving big, ugly breaths between sobs. 

“I got you,” Steve murmurs and wraps an arm around the boy. Danny’s heart clenches as the kid turns and buries his face against Steve’s chest. 

Danny’s thoroughly into his game of Candy Crush by the time Nathan quiets. There’s some movement behind him and from the reflection in the oven door Danny watches Nathan rearrange himself on the sofa.

“It’s a lot. I’ve been here; I know,” Steve says. “If you wanna talk about it — now or later — you can call me, alright?”

The blurry reflection nods jerkily and Danny hopes Steve knows what he’s getting into. Sure, Danny lets some of the cases get a little personal, but even then there are boundaries — boundaries being something that Steve still doesn’t set well as evidenced by the saga that is Doris’ untimely resurrection.

“You said you know; what happened to you?” the kid asks tentatively.

Danny gives up all pretense of playing on his phone and watches their reflections intently. 

“When I was sixteen, my mother was killed in a car bomb.” The kid makes a noise like a wounded animal but doesn’t say anything. “I found out last year she faked it, but her actions got my father murdered a while back.”

“Fuck,” Nathan mutters.

Danny can’t make out the look on the kid’s face, but Steve chuckles. “I think a little swearing is probably appropriate in this situation.”

A soft huff, like an attempted laugh, comes from the sofa. Danny smiles, glad for once to be wrong about Steve’s interpersonal skills.

“Look, Nathan. Losing a parent, understanding why your mother did what she did to your father, adjusting to a new life with someone else raising you — none of this is going to be easy. But you will survive it and in time you’ll find people to call family again. It-”

“How can I trust anyone after this? What if they’re just as awful? I mean she’s my mom, I thought I knew her, I thought she loved me! How do you trust her-”

“Woah, easy, Nathan,” Steve says, and Danny watches as Steve holds the kid’s shoulders tight. “I told you, it’s hard. There are no easy answers. Does my mom love me? Probably. Do I trust her? No. Not a thing that comes out of her mouth is the whole truth and given the chance she hurts me more often than not. You’re gonna have to decide how much of a relationship, if any, that you want with her. But my point isn’t about your mom. My point is that there are other people out there who aren’t like that. You don’t have to give up on people entirely; that’s all I’m saying.”

Nathan slumps in Steve’s hands, and Danny watches as Steve releases him carefully. 

After a lengthy pause, Nathan asks, “How’d you find people?” 

“Work. When my mom faked her death, my dad sent me to boarding school on the mainland. I saw him maybe three times after that before he was murdered. I didn’t see my sister for almost twenty years; she was sent to live with an aunt. As soon as I was eighteen I enlisted so I’ve pretty much only been around people through work.”

“Was it enough?” Nathan asks, and Danny thinks maybe this kid ought to go into law enforcement for all that he’s clearly perceptive.

Steve shrugs. “For a while, yeah. But Danny,” Steve says, his thumb pointing over his shoulder towards the kitchen where Danny leans against the counter. “He helped me deal with a lot of what happened in ways that you don’t get to do in the military. He’s ohana. I’m not saying that I haven’t had a lot of close friends over the years, just that it was a different environment. But in the same way that I have a lot of important relationships with people who weren’t blood family, I have no doubt that you will, too.”

There’s some wet sounding sniffling, and Danny watches in the reflection as Steve leans over Nathan once again and pulls him into his arms. After minute, Danny flicks his phone back on and opens Candy Crush. But rather than play, Danny just lets the timer tick down. Steve is being open not just about what happened, but also about what it meant for him. Danny can’t say he ever expected to see the day.

Maybe, just maybe, Steve getting a little personally involved in a case won’t be the worst thing in the world for him.

*****

It’s an hour later, once they’ve talked to Nathan all that they can and gotten things squared away with Child Services while his uncle flies in from the mainland, when they finally take off.

Danny waits until they’re clear of the techs and the uniforms on the scene before he lays a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says softly.

Steve stops and turns, giving Danny his undivided attention in the way that only Steve seems to be able to do. “What’s up?”

“Come here,” Danny says, and he opens his arms in a way that makes it clear what he expects.

“I’m alright,” Steve protests, his face quickly going blank.

Danny rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say you weren’t. It’s a hug. I can hug you for a lot of reasons. Maybe I want it. Don’t be a putz.”

Steve smiles and steps forward into Danny’s arms. For all that Steve protested just a second ago, he hangs onto Danny like he’s drowning, and hell, maybe he is, Danny thinks. Steve clings for longer than Danny would have expected, but Danny doesn’t protest since Steve so rarely accepts comfort like this.

Finally, they part and finish their walk to the Camaro. Unsurprisingly, Steve situates himself in the driver’s seat, and Danny, for his part, only grumbles a little. 

“So I have to say, you did real well with the kid. I mean it wasn’t that long ago you were trying to teach the Aloha Girls to gut a pig with a KA-BAR, and how here you are comforting a child with actual wisdom.”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, it’s almost like I have someone helping me deal with my shit. Weird, huh?”

“So weird,” Danny agrees. But weird isn’t always bad, Danny decides.


End file.
